


Triangle Walks

by TyraaRane



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Female Runner Five, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Mute Runner Five, at least they've got that going for them, at this point I'm convinced Five is powered entirely by their depression and anxiety, so basically they're immortal and cannot be stopped, zrs4, zrs4 spoilers, zrs5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 21:19:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TyraaRane/pseuds/TyraaRane
Summary: The day was so long and the night even longer. A brief 5am tinged interlude between S4 and 5, because my heart needed it. Major spoilers through the end of S4.





	Triangle Walks

**Author's Note:**

> This should be mostly if not completely canon compliant. It's definitely canon to me, anyway. I've also tried my best to eliminate all the Americanisms, but a few might still be lurking in the corners. Sorry about that. And finally, as credit where it's due, the story's title is from a song by Fever Ray which is very definitely not relevant to anything.

Runner Five was going in circles again.

Well. More like a square, really. Or was it a rectangle? She tried to picture the cottage from a bird’s eye view as she made circuit after circuit.

It was a box at the crest of a small hill, surrounded by hedge and fencing and something that might have been a sheep pen once. Now it was just mud, slowly spilling over with weeds. Its past owner had boarded up the ground floor windows, but the back door was missing and a smear of dried blood led from there into the kitchen.

Same old story. Five and Janine had found the missing door halfway down the hill, patched it up, and put it back in place just before the sun went down.

She jogged by it now. Then a side step around the kitchen table—covered in old tea stains and now Janine’s maps and scribbled notes—followed by a quick duck to avoid hitting her head on the entryway to the library. Serpentine pattern through all the scattered, moldering books long fallen off their shelves. Through another, wider entryway, two steps through the front hall, and then on into the living room. From there it was a side-step around the couch, then a few more paces to an empty dining room, and then the back door again.

It was small, too small for four people to live without elbowing each other too often, and the roof upstairs looked ready to fall in during the next strong wind, but it was at least secure. Even if only for a few nights. And Five supposed it was nice to sleep under a proper roof again. No bed—only a single, and Maxine had drawn the lucky straw—but real blankets and all.

That was, if she ever got to sleep.

She’d tried, for what felt like hours. Turned this way and that, stamped down the lumps in her pillow until it was nearly flat. Lay in the dark and listened to Sam’s steady breath beside her. Or those tiny, purr-like snores Maxine swore she didn’t make. Nothing helped.

Then the ringing in the back of her head had started. Softly, so softly she’d almost thought it was something off in the distance at first.

Five sped up on the next lap. Her shoes squeaked on the kitchen tile as she made the turn.

It always happened when she started to panic, creeping up on her like a steadily rising tide until she just...disappeared under it for a while. No matter how hard she tried to hold on.

When the ringing had started, that was when she’d gotten going in circles.

Sometimes the pattern—the running—soothed her such that the ringing faded away. Sometimes she just ran until she teetered on the brink of collapse from exhaustion, and that worked too. Although it was hardly her ideal way of getting to sleep. It alarmed the others, for one. Janine, on first watch as always, hadn’t said anything when Five had padded by her and on down the stairs. But she’d watched her the whole while, the corners of her mouth twitching into a minuscule frown.

Janine was starting to worry about her.

Sometimes Five wondered how long she could keep doing this, burning the candle at both ends—more so than usual, even. She supposed she could ask Maxine, but Maxine had enough to do without also having to worry about Runner Five’s impending nervous breakdown. Or her ongoing one.

She made another loop, and then another. The longer she went on, the easier it got to navigate around obstacles in the dark. This was their first foray back into near-civilization in a while, and Janine had strongly recommended _lights out._ No one could know they were still alive, not yet. Five navigated by the dim, amber light of a camping lantern on the kitchen floor and another just inside the living room.

As she looped by the one in the kitchen she made a mental note to turn them off before she went upstairs to bed. _If_ she went upstairs to bed. Better to save the batteries.

Five was passing through the dining room again—a slight jump over the spot where the floor had started to buckle—when she heard behind her a dull _thump_ and a familiar, “Ow! Bloody hell—oh, who puts a couch in the middle of a room like that? Honestly.”

She doubled back. A shadowed figure stood in the cluttered living room now, wobbling a little on one foot. He hadn’t noticed her, maybe because he was preoccupied with nursing a newly bruised shin. She knocked on the entryway once so she wouldn’t startle him. Sam glanced up, trying to smile through clenched teeth. “Hi, Five. With you in a second.”

She had to wait—not very long—for him to set his foot down and focus on her before she could say anything. Even then, it was so dark she had to move forward until her fingers almost grazed his face so he could see what she signed. “You know you aren’t very stealthy,” she began. Sam stifled a yawn, taking longer than usual to parse the words.

“You went right by me in the front hall a minute ago. Like I wasn’t even there. That’s not bad for somebody wearing neon orange.” He paused, tugging at the sleeve of his jumper. There was another hole starting at the elbow. “Well. I guess the color has faded a bit.”

Five tried to rewind her memory a few dozen steps. All she could remember was near darkness and the steady sound of her own feet. “I wasn’t paying attention,” she conceded. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No,” he started, drawing out the vowel, which meant yes. “Well. Sort of. It’s just that I could hear you running.” He yawned again into his sleeve as he said it. She thought he might be hiding a frown, but in the dark it was hard to tell. “And I can’t—I don’t like to sleep when you’re running. You know. Just...I don’t, that’s all.”

A pang of guilt twisted in her guts despite herself. He hadn’t meant anything by it, she knew that. But she also knew he needed sleep just as badly as she did.

She also couldn’t _stop_. Not now. Not yet. “I know,” she said instead, finishing with her palms up in something half a shrug, half an apology. “I’m only doing a few laps. Indoors.”

“I know, but good luck telling my head that.” He flopped backwards onto the couch with a small crescendo of rusty springs. “Sorry. I’m fine now I can see you, Five. Keep going if you want.”

Fair enough. She flashed him a thumbs up as a thanks and then started back on her prior route. By the third lap, Sam had stretched out across most of the couch. She couldn’t see his face; he’d buried his nose in one of the back cushions. Maybe he’d gone back to sleep. She looked for a blanket or a throw to drape over him but couldn’t spot one.

By her eighth lap he was sitting up again. Blinking, bleary-eyed. “Five,” he started, and she stopped with a scuff of trainers on carpet. Instinct. “Why _are_ you running laps at one in the morning?”

“Trying to make myself tired.” Her hands hung in the air in a lengthy pause. “Can’t sleep.”

Sam considered that as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Wish I had that kind of energy,” he cracked with a half-hearted smile. Then he patted the empty spot on the couch beside him. “Mind sitting for a minute? You’re making me a bit dizzy.”

It smelled of an excuse, and part of her still ached to keep moving, but she sat down anyway. She could tell when Sam wanted to talk. “You okay?” she asked, one-handed, while she stretched her calves with the other.

“Fine.” He answered much too fast. “Considering the circumstances.” He ran his hand through his messy hair, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. He was starting to look like he needed a haircut. “I should be asking you that, really. You’re the one going in circles.”

Her only reply was a shrug. Sam chuckled, reaching down to rub his bruised shin again. “Yeah. Guess that’s fair.” 

They sat side by side in silence for a long while. The only sound was a creak as Five shifted in her seat. One of the couch springs was broken and poking her backside; she moved her weight off it, closer to Sam. The muscles in her legs were still twitching. How long had she been running? She couldn’t remember anymore.

“Did I wake Maxine too?” she finally ventured.

He shook his head. “Still out. And I didn’t get too close, but I _think_ Janine might’ve actually turned into a statue. If she were outside, she’d be in serious danger from pigeons.”

She grinned and nudged him with her elbow, staggering him sideways. “No bird would _dare_.” She punctuated the last word with a tap on his shoulder.

He chuckled again, nudging her back. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Silence settled back down around them. Five folded her legs up cross-wise on the couch, then stretched them out again. A certain restless energy had started to build back up in her muscles and in her head. Her fingers twitched, tapping a rhythm out on her knee.

When she realized what it was she stopped, trapping her hand between her thighs until her bones twinged in protest. The song stuck in her head anyway. _Oh, we shall strive, together not apart._

She was about to jump up and do another few laps when Sam exhaled, thudding against the back of the couch. Five jumped despite herself, startled. “It’s a bit weird, isn’t it?” he said, eyes on the ceiling beams above them. “Having a roof over our heads again. A proper roof, I mean. A _house_. Not like that camper van Janine’s got her eye on. Or—God, do you remember that cargo container?”

She bit her lip to stop the grin. That night had been terrifying, but the span of a couple weeks had lessened the sting. “Unfortunately.”

He’d started to giggle, high and thin: the unmistakable sound of a man running on entirely too little sleep over the last forty-eight hours. “I swear, if I never see another tin of beans—you know I couldn’t decide if we were going to suffocate or if Janine was going to put us all out of her misery first?”

It was late enough, and she’d hit that perfect stage of exhaustion where the images that popped into her head were positively hysterical. She laughed in silence, covering her mouth with one hand.

 _That really threw me at first, you know._ A beautiful, horrifying sound like a hundred bells filled her head. _How quiet you were all the time. Quiet as the grave, isn’t that what people say?_

“Five?”

The ringing in her ears began to recede, and with it her vision—which had gone abruptly dark—ebbed its way back. Her head spun; for a wild moment she had the idea that she’d been floating in mid-air.

“Five?” Sam repeated, this time with more urgency.

She blinked at him, then followed his glance down. She’d latched onto him like an anchor. Her fingers squeezed his forearm in a vise-like grip; it took a concentrated effort on her part to finally let go. Sam flashed his _see? No harm done_ smile as he rubbed the circulation back into his wrist. “Thanks. I’m a little attached to that hand. Well, both of them, really.”

“Sorry,” she signed. Her fingers were still stiff.

“Are you all right? It felt like...I dunno, like you went someplace else for a second.” He watched her with worry so intense she felt it might flatten her. Even in the near-dark, she could still see it written all over his face. Five found herself watching his chest rise and fall with each breath to avoid meeting his eyes. His hand moved to squeeze her knee, then just as quickly withdrew.

The truth felt like it would burn a vicious hole in her chest one of these days. Other times she was astounded he hadn’t guessed it already. Runners weren’t meant to keep secrets from their operator. _She_ wasn’t meant to keep secrets from _him_.

She exhaled through clenched teeth, lifted her hands, and began. “It’s just a rough few days. Nightmares. I’ll be okay.”

This secret—this one she had to keep, possibly all the way to her grave. Which might not be far off, depending on how the next few weeks went. Right now Janine—everyone, but especially Janine—needed _Runner Five_ , not a runner who kept hearing voices that might or might not be real. Not another doubt or unknown variable.

“Really,” she added, forcing a closed lipped grin. “Please don’t worry.”

Sam bit the corner of his lip. She flinched. Sam Yao’s tells were many and obvious, at least to the people who knew him best. At least to her. He knew she wasn’t telling the full truth. Still, he played it off with a self-deprecating smile. “Telling me not to worry’s a bit useless. You know that. Like...telling a zom not to eat brains.”

“I had to try.”

She felt the cushions tilt as he shifted his weight, and then his arm wrapped around her, pulling her into a fierce sideways hug. Her own arm slid just as easily across his waist, her head coming to rest against his chest.

Sam always did have a talent for putting her at ease. Through his jumper she could hear his heartbeat, the rhythm trying to lull her to sleep. His arm around her shoulder helped ward off the damp chill in the air. She closed her eyes and held on tight, just for a moment.

“Listen, Five...” She felt him brush a wayward lock of her hair back behind her ear where it belonged. “So long as you’re okay, I’m okay. You know that, right?”

She smiled into his jumper. It still smelled like the juniper bush he’d fallen into yesterday and, somewhere under that, faintly of the sea. Without looking, she let go of him to reply, “I know. You, too.”

“Yeah, that’s us,” he murmured, absently rubbing her shoulder. “Always a pair, aren’t we?”

Five offered him another thumbs up. Most of her concentration was going to keeping her eyes open. The longer she stayed like this, warm and safe, the quicker her exhaustion caught up with her.

“Actually—” Sam turned his head away to yawn— “it’s probably for the best your running woke me up. I think I might’ve been having a nightmare.”

She sat up a little straighter. Sam still had a firm hold of her shoulders. Like it was his turn now to hang on for dear life. “About?”

He would only look at her sideways, as if something out in the hall had caught his attention. And his fingers were drumming against her shoulder blade. Another tell. “I think it was those zombie clowns from last week. D’you remember?”

They’d chased her and Maxine almost two miles, their oversized shoes squeaking the whole while. Hard to forget. Sam smiled down at her now with those encouraging, puppy dog eyes, hoping she’d accept the bait. “I remember.” She rolled her eyes and smiled, too tight, as she signed it. 

“Your nightmares weren’t about the clowns, were they?”

Five shook her head. _Yours weren’t either,_ she wanted to say. She let her hands drop back into her lap instead. She kept her secret, he could keep his. He gave her shoulder a brief squeeze, and she let her head rest against his chest again. In an effort to get more comfortable, she swung her legs up onto the couch and let them stretch out until her feet dangled over the far end. Sam’s leg bounced up and down as he fidgeted, making the couch springs squeak. 

“You know, Five,” he began, then just as quickly trailed off into silence again. She gently poked his ribs as a hint to keep going. He jumped, lifting her head off his chest, and settled back down with a weak laugh. “Okay, okay. I just—can I ask you something?”

She nodded, propping her chin up on his shoulder to watch him. 

“It’s just that I’ve been thinking. About all of this.” He made a vague, all-encompassing gesture with his free hand. “I don’t know if any of us will survive tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next. I mean—I know that’s not a _new_ thing, but—you know what I mean, right?”

“Yes.” If they’d been living on the razor’s edge before, back at Abel, now they didn’t even have that to fall back on. 

“Well, it’s gotten me thinking, that’s all. What do you think our odds are? Not—we’re _going_ to get Paula and baby Sara back,” he said with sudden conviction, squeezing her shoulder hard. “I know that. We have to. It’s just...the rest of it. What are the odds that we’ll take down the Minister, all of that?” She’d only just started on her shorthand sign for Janine, as in _ask Janine_ , when Sam cut her off. “I want to know what _you_ think, Five. Just you.”

Five bit the inside of her cheek as she thought. Then, taking his hand, she spelled a single word out on his palm. When she finished she closed her hands around his, squeezing tight.

Sam let out a shaky sigh. “Guess I know why you’re running in circles.”

“And why we have nightmares.” 

After that, she supposed she must have drifted off, if only for a moment. Her head snapped upward as Sam was asking, “What are yours about, then? Five?”

Fire on the water and the roar of the sea. The rattle in Sara’s throat when she coughed. Archie, dying. The white-hot bite of a needle. A thousand ringing bells, so beautiful she never wanted to hear anything else again. Simon, his head full of flames. The ax in her trembling hands.

“Everything.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s fair enough. Between the two of us I bet we’ve got a whole horror show.” He paused a moment in thought before he bent to murmur near her ear, “Tell you what. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

She laughed, silently, into his shoulder. Without needing to look she knew he’d be grinning, all lopsided. “Maybe in the morning.” A lengthy yawn interrupted her signing. “I might actually sleep now.” She was almost to reluctant to admit it, as if she’d jinx it—but her head stayed quiet. Just the steady siren call of sleep. Nothing else.

“Me too,” Sam agreed into her hair. He swung his legs up onto the couch, his knees prodding her torso for a second before he settled in. Five found herself folded between him and the back of the couch, still wrapped in his arms. “Is this all right? You don’t mind staying?”

As if he’d ever have to ask. She found his hand in the dark again and squeezed, their fingers intertwining.

He shifted under her, leaning down to leave a lingering kiss on her forehead. “Just… Listen. Just remember that I’m always here, Five.”

Her eyes slid closed as she finished her answer: “Never forgotten it.”


End file.
